The Cooper Manipulation
by Twinklesabri
Summary: This is set after 9x09, so it contains spoilers. This is my take on what happens after their conversation, and what I wish they would say during their "talk" if it ever comes on the show. :)


**Warning: Spoilers from 9x09 !**

 **Hello everyone. While many of us are still recovering from the latest spoilers (ermargheeeed right?!), I am happy to share with you this story that I wrote a few hours before 9x10 taping. Angst and fluff and comedy are all mixed to create the longest one shot I have ever written ! Enjoy and let me know what you think :)**

"Sheldon, I think I am ready to be your girlfriend again." Amy told Sheldon as she drove back home from Thanksgiving's dinner at her mother's house.

"Amy, I excel at many things, but being your boyfriend is not one of them, I am sorry." Sheldon said.

At that moment, Amy was thankful that she was having this conversation with her ex-boyfriend on the phone, because if they were talking in person, he would have seen the world cracking from beneath her feet and swallowing her all at once. A flashback of their hallway conversation a few weeks ago came back to her, and she almost felt a sense of deja-vu.

"Oh. Okay. I understand." She replied, her voice cracking and the tears pooling in her eyes, slowly beginning to blur her vision.

"Drive safely Amy, I have to go. Text me when you arrive home." Sheldon said after a little while. Amy could not risk talking, as she was about to burst in tears.

"Okay, bye Sheldon." She mumbled, biting her lip. She thought if she did this it would keep her tears from rolling down her cheek. As soon as she hung up, she released a deep breath she never knew she was holding in the first place, and the waterfall began. She had to pull over. Her sobs were the only noise filling the silence in the car.

 _How is this possible? I though he wanted me back. I thought he was devastated by the break, just like me. Did he really move on? Did he stop loving me already? Did he ever really love me? Was I just a part of his routine? Was that the only reason he didn't want the break? Did I just lose the love of my life, and the only man I have ever loved? Did I make a mistake by taking a break to reevaluate our situation? Did I break us and our strong relationship? Can I ever be friends with him again, knowing how his lips feel on mine? Will I be able to pretend I don't feel anything whenever I hear his voice when I am at girl's night? Will I be able to forget him and move on as well? No._

These questions were bombarding Amy's mind, and after almost half an hour on the side of the road, it was time to head back home. She wiped her wet cheeks and went on with her hour long journey.

 _Should I call Penny? Who am I kidding? If she cared about me and Sheldon, she would have never encouraged me to date someone else in the first place. I never realized it before, but our so called friends all considered our relationship a joke. Maybe that is why none of them had tried to help us communicate. Not Leonard, I think he was actually the only one who respected Sheldon and I as a couple. When we were one. And the most powerful one of the gang that is. What a waste._

Dark thoughts began to flood her mind, and she was soon convinced that she threw away her only chance to have a family of her own. She was also convinced that it was too late, that she had lost Sheldon forever. She dropped her tiny exhausted body on the couch, and picked up her phone.

Three missed calls from Mary Cooper. _Uh oh._

She dialed the number and waited for her ex-soon to be mother in law to pick up the phone. Her anxiety kept growing as she waited, until Mary replied at the last ringtone.

"Hello?" Mary answered.

"Good evening Mrs. Cooper, it's Amy. I just saw your missed calls. I am sorry I was driving back from my mother's house." Amy said, trying to keep a neutral tone, but deep down she knew she couldn't fool Mary.

"Oh hello honey! How are you?" Mary answered casually.

"I'm fine, I guess. How are you? And Missy, and Meemaw?" Amy asked conversationally. She was trying to avoid any awkward questions.

"Everyone is fine my dear. I actually only called you to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! Sheldon told me you both had a lunch date earlier today. Can Mama Cooper be happy that her Shelly is back with his girlfriend? You know how Sheldon is, he never spills the beans on the phone. It's only when I can cook him something that his tongue starts rollin'." Mary said with a hope that Amy could sense miles away from Texas.

"Oh I really wish I could but I am sorry to tell you Mary but no, we are not back together." Amy confessed, the sadness weighing in her voice. There was no need to lie to her. She would find out eventually anyway.

"What did he do that was so terrible, that you don't want him back?" Mary risked asking her.

"It's not me that doesn't want him back this time." Amy simply stated. She did not want to give too much information, afraid she would cry again.

After a brief silence, filled with a few sighs, mainly from Amy, the conversation started again.

"Now, I need you to tell me the truth Amy. Do you want to be with Sheldon? Honestly, I will not judge." Mary asked abruptly, expecting a very clear and sincere answer from the young biologist.

"I guess I do." Amy hesitated. The truth was she loved Sheldon with all her heart and soul, but she was not comfortable proclaiming her love for him to his mother.

"You guess? No, I need a clear and honest answer little lady. Do you **want** Sheldon, Amy?" Mary pressed.

"YES!" Amy replied with gusto. She had a determination she didn't know was there.

"That's my girl! Now listen to me carefully. I will teach you how to handle a Cooper's man Texan feelings. You might want to take some notes." She laughed. She would make sure Sheldon wanted Amy as much as she wanted him. She knew her son best and she knew that Amy was an angel sent from heaven and absolutely perfect for her stubborn son.

After almost an hour spent on the phone with Mary Cooper, Amy was determined to get her love life back on tracks. She hung up the phone, filled with hope and confidence, thanks to her ex-boyfriend's mother, and her vigorous encouragements.

It was 9:40pm, only twenty minutes before Sheldon's bed time and it was a fifteen minute drive from Glendale to Pasadena. She rushed into the bathroom, washed her face, traded her uncomfortable heels for her regular orthopedic shoes and put on a few drops of Sheldon's favorite perfume: Cherry Blossom.

She was in her car at 9:44pm and silently congratulated herself for her impeccable timing. She drove as fast and as safely as she could and arrived at Los Robles at 9:58pm. She climbed the stairs two by two, congratulating herself once again, this time for her choice of footwear and arrived in front of 4A completely out of breath. She checked her watch: it was 9:59pm. She immediately knocked on the door, and leaned on the wall to catch her breath. The door swung open revealing Leonard, who looked very surprised to see Amy panting and checking her pulse.

"Hi Leonard, where is Sheldon?" She greeted him, inviting herself inside the guy's apartment.

"Hi… He's in his bedroom." Leonard replied, still confused.

"Good." She answered and headed straight to Sheldon's bedroom.

She took a few quick breaths and knocked. When she heard Sheldon's voice saying to come in, her heart squeezed inside her chest. But she had to do this.

"Amy? What are you doing here?" Sheldon asked, surprised. "I asked you to send me a text when you were home, not to actually come tell me in person." He added.

"Sheldon, I won't take a no for an answer." She blurted out, awkwardly at first.

"What do you mean?" He asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"You heard me. After all, you do have a Vulcan hearing." She replied with more confidence, her hands on her hips for more effect.

"Is this about our conversation earlier?" Sheldon inquired, still a bit confused.

"Yes." Amy replied firmly.

"Do you mind elaborating?" He asked her tentatively.

"I told you I was ready to be your girlfriend again, you basically told me no. So, I am here to tell you that 'no' is not an acceptable answer." She replied calmly.

"Theoretically, I never said the word 'no'." He said, emphasizing his sentence by doing quote marks in the air.

"You told me that you excelled at many things, which is totally true, but being my boyfriend was not one of those things. I am here to refute your argument." She said, with a hint of malice in her tone, that Sheldon failed to sense.

"But if I excelled at being your boyfriend, you would have never asked for a break, nor thought that I was a bod boyfriend." He pointed out.

"Damn, Penny and her big mouth." Amy hissed under her breath.

"It's not just Penny. Everyone knew I was not good for you Amy, even I realize that now." Sheldon admitted with a hint of sadness in his voice.

"It's true, I asked for a break. And I was the one to break up with you. I admit it. But I thought you wanted to be back together, why would you turn down my offer of resuming our boyfriend/girlfriend relationship?" She asked, approaching him slowly.

"I came to the conclusion that I should not keep you locked in the dullness of our relationship. I would be very selfish to resume a relationship with you knowing very well that I can't satisfy you, in every way." Sheldon revealed, looking down at his folded hands on his lap.

"Sheldon…" Amy started She wasn't sure what to do next. "Can I sit with you?" She asked him. He simply nodded and scooted to give her some space to sit on the bed next to him. Amy was actually very surprised that he let her in his bedroom so easily. She was not one to complain though.

She sat on the bed, and took a few breaths. She didn't really know how to proceed, but she remembered Mary's words quite vividly: _Do you remember when Shelly broke with you over a silly science disagreement? Remember how I manipulated him to believe you were not suited for each other?_

"Sheldon, after much thought, I have to agree. I think we are too different. Being in a relationship with you was a mistake." She said abruptly. Sheldon's head rose immediately, and he looked at her with wide eyes.

"Amy! You can't be serious. How can you possibly say that? You and I both know our intelligence is extremely compatible. We have so many stimulating conversations. We invented a game together. There are no two people more suited for each one another than us! Look at all those hippy dippy couples out there, what do they have in common except their childish feelings and foolish love? Absolutely nothing! I have more in common with you than I have with my entire social circle!" Sheldon exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

 _Point Fowler. It's working! If I succeed, I should probably send some flowers to Mary. This woman is a wonder._

"I am sorry, I just can't see it." She continued, fainting ignorance.

"This is ridiculous woman!" He exclaimed, standing up and pacing back and forth.

"Sheldon, if you think we are compatible and suited for each other, as you say, how come you wouldn't want to resume our relationship?" She asked, trying to catch his narrowed gaze.

"Because I..I.." He stammered. He slumped down on the bed next to her. The truth was he had no answer.

"You can tell me anything Sheldon." She said reassuringly, taking one of his hand in hers.

He didn't pull away, he just simply stared down at their fingers laced together and sighed. Amy could have sworn she saw him shiver.

"When I saw you with this man…" He began.

"Who? Dave?" Amy asked surprised. She had no idea when he possibly could have seen them together.

"Yes. When I saw you standing with him. When I saw him kissing you after your date… I just…" Sheldon trailed off. It was too painful for him to visualize Amy with another man, yet because of his eidetic memory, the image kept showing in front of his eyes again and again.

"Sheldon, he was nowhere as amazing as you." She said, squeezing his hand.

"But that is where you are wrong. He is, Amy. Way more than me." He replied sadly, reclaiming his hand from hers. This simple gesture broke her heart some more, but she just pretended like it was nothing, just like she always does.

"Sheldon that's ridiculous! He is a Physics teacher in High School! How can he ever compete with you?" Amy protested.

"Because he is _normal_! Okay? He took you out on a proper date. He kissed you, and it didn't take him 3 years to do it. He is _fucking normal_ Amy!" Amy was shocked at the language he was using. She never heard Sheldon curse unless he was really upset and even then she had never heard him use that word. She wasn't even sure he knew that word. Then he continued. "He could make you happy! He could be the father of your children without having to clinically conceive them. He could be all the things I couldn't be for you." He rose again, but this time out of anger. He was angry at himself, for being so special, not like everybody else. Amy was a special woman, but she needed, deserved, a certain degree of normality in her life. At least that's what he came to think. Amy was awestruck with Sheldon's sudden anger.

 _Wow! Where did that come from?_

"Sheldon… do you know why I stopped dating him?" She asked him after he calmed himself and went to sit on the chair, distancing himself from her.

"Mmh?" He hummed.

"He made me realize how incredible you are. The night of our last date, he kept praising you, your work and your intelligence. All night long! Can you imagine how it was for me? I had to listen to a man worshipping my ex-boyfriend during our entire date!" She told him.

"You said he is only a Physics teacher in High School, no one can blame him from being fascinated by my courses." Sheldon replied casually. And the old Cooper is back, Amy thought.

"My point is, when I heard him talk so highly of you, I just wanted to run out of the restaurant. Not because the date was terrible, but because I wished you were the one talking about yourself like that, in front of me, on date night." Amy paused, taking a deep breath. "Sheldon." She resumed. "I am not normal either. I don't dress like Penny, I don't curl my hair like Bernadette, I don't have original hobbies like Emily. I am just me. And you are you." She finished with a smile.

"I..I don't know what to say Amy." He muttered, playing with the hem of his shirt.

"Then just listen to me." She whispered. He drew his attention back to her, and met her gaze. His heart pounded as he felt the familiar warm feeling slowly building inside of him, like whenever he looked in her bright, brilliant emerald eyes. He gave her a simple nod, and she cleared her throat.

"Sheldon, sometimes I think that I made a horrible mistake by asking for a break. But I also realized that I needed it, we needed it. I needed to take a step back to realize just how special our relationship was, and that's unfortunate. I wish I realized it before, but that's how life goes. Sometimes we need to lose someone to realize how precious he was." She finished with a twinkle in her eyes.

"You sound just like my mother." Sheldon said in wonder. Point Fowler again.

"I take that as a compliment." Amy replied with a smirk.

"Of course." He said with a tiny smile.

 _Your move Cooper, I just threw out my feelings like a lovesick puppy. This is not like playing ping-pong by myself against a wall, I need an actual partner in this game._

"Amy…" he began. _Oh god, here we go._ She thought but he continued. "It's way past my bedtime." He stated flatly.

She could not hide her disappointment. She actually thought that he was going to talk, like really talk, just like she did a few moments ago.

"So I might as well offer you a cup of tea. Would you mind?" He continued, gesturing to the door.

Amy let out a tiny sigh of relief and nodded, raising from the bed and walking behind him towards the kitchen.

They found Leonard and Penny on the couch. Penny looked at Amy strangely, but the brunette just raised her eyebrows and gestured to the door with a little nod of her head, universal sign of **We need privacy.** Penny did a discreet nod in return and took Leonard's hand in hers and rose from the couch.

"Let's go to bed sweetie, I am exhausted." Penny said, making a play of yawning loudly then dragging Leonard along with her as she headed to the door. "Goodnight you two!" She waved back at Sheldon and Amy.

"Goodnight." They both replied in unison. Amy mouthed a thank you to Penny while Sheldon's back was turned.

Amy took a seat at the kitchen island while Sheldon put the kettle on the stove and retrieved the tea box and the mugs. She tried to suppress the little smile from her face when he chose their usual blue and yellow cups, but he caught it.

"What are you smiling at?" he asked her.

"Nothing, just sitting here reminds me of the many conversations we shared together." She said with a hint of melancholy.

"Oh, we had some good discussions, didn't we?" He laughed, recalling one of the sillier conversations about him being happy. He had found a loophole and a goofy picture of himself to show that he was not upset. Amy just let it go and they had a wonderful night afterwards building the fort.

"Sure! Like pretending we were having coitus to determine how fast a rumor was spreading inside our social circle." She joked. He recalled that as one of the more fun ones as well.

"That was one of our best moves!" He cheered.

"I still can't believe Leonard thought I was pregnant only a few days after we presumably started having sexual intercourse." Amy stated.

"Leonard has many qualities but wit and logic may not be part of them." Sheldon replied.

"So true. But Penny wasn't any the wiser either. She was the one that sent the text 30 seconds after I told her." She said, as they brought their tea cups to meet in the middle of the kitchen island.

The familiarity of their action made them giggle like teenagers. Their laughter eventually faded, replaced by a heavy tension that one could slice with a sharp knife. Amy narrowed her gaze and dismissively traced the edge of her tea cup with her shaky fingers. Sheldon on the other hand, was praying to a deity he didn't believe in to ask for the power to formulate the words that were running in his mind. After a couple minutes of silence, Sheldon stated the first thing that came to his mind.

"I miss you." Which startled Amy, who was not really ready to hear those words from Sheldon's mouth.

"We are in the same room Sheldon." She replied quietly.

"I mean.. I miss having you in my life, and interacting with you like we used to. I miss sitting here talking to you. I miss everything that we had before..you know…" He trailed off.

"I never really left." She whispered.

"It felt like you were miles away from me." He said sadly.

At that moment, Amy wanted to punch herself, right in the nose. She realized that breaking up with him, she let him down as a girlfriend but also as her best friend. They were used to each other, and while she tried to keep herself busy by dating and having girls' nights, Sheldon was alone. He was alone on date night, he was alone on his quiet evenings after work. He had nothing after she stopped their daily Skype conversations. A single tear rolled down her cheek but she wiped it away swiftly, not wanting to startle him.

"I am sorry." She told him with a shaky voice.

"I am the one who should be sorry Amy. I did not treat you as you deserved to be treated. I took you for granted and never took your needs or feelings in consideration. I wish I could go back in time, but all my work to try and create a machine to go back in time failed, so I am stuck here with the consequences of my poor actions." He gulped.

Amy didn't know what to do, or what to say. Instinctively, she brought her hand near his but remembering how he retreated earlier, she began to pull away. But Sheldon grabbed it instead, and laced his fingers with hers.

She looked at him with watery eyes, and realized just how much she missed him too. She missed his blue eyes, his boyish shirts, his snappy remarks and annoyingly smart sentences. She missed everything about him, from his body, to his personality. She could not suppress her little sobs this time, and Sheldon started to panic. He rose up from his chair and made his way to be in front of Amy, still holding her hand. He did not know what to say, so he did just like she did the time he was upset about Kripke's paper beating his: he embraced her. He let her cry on his shoulder, embracing her tightly. He did not know what to do with his large hands, so he started tracing numbers with his long fingers on her back.

"Are you writing Pi on my back?" She asked him after a while, with a little smile.

"Told you we were alike, _only you_ could have caught that." he replied, returning her smile.

He pulled away, just slightly, to be able to cup her face with his hands. He looked at her straight in the eyes, and said what he wanted to say since she showed up at his place.

"Amy, I love you. I will never stop loving you, and I can't even begin to think of my future without you in it, it's just seems impossible. Would you be my girlfriend again?" He begged.

"Yes." She replied in a shaky voice, cupping his hands with her owns.

Sheldon leaned in slowly, almost too slowly for Amy's taste, and planted a kiss on her lips. She felt like earth began to turn again at the familiarity of his lips on hers and appreciated the kiss as long as it lasted, which was way longer than usual.


End file.
